Before Jesus arrived and his divine father chilled out, the Old Testament God was, ironically, kind …
Read more Read more

NOTE: Egyptian mythology was a hilarious mess even back in ancient Egypt, where relationship, stories, and pretty much everything else changed ceaselessly. So if any of these don't recognize the myths as you learned them, don't stress!

1) Ra Murders Everybody Who Made Fun of Him

Advertisement

The first of ancient Egypt's major sun gods, Ra ruled Egypt for thousands of years of peace and prosperity. Eventually, though, Ra got old — in ancient Egypt, gods did age, although they were usually reborn at some point — and his subjects started whispering shit behind his back, making fun of him, just a lot of shit you don't do when your king is a god, no matter what his mental faculties are. Ra was so pissed he turned Hathor, the goddess of love, joy and motherhood, into Sekhmet, the war goddess and basically the perfect killing machine. Sekhmet killed half of the populace before Ra realized he had no idea how to stop her from killing all his subjects (he was getting senile, after all). So Ra order his remaining people to make 7,000 jars of beer, dyed it all red, and dumped it on the ground. When Sekhmet discovered this literal red sea, she thought it was blood, and drank it all until she passed out and Ra was able to change her back to Hathor (and also a cow). Note: This is like if Obama decided to nuke New York City because of the cast of Saturday Night Live making fun of him.

2) Set Murders His Brother Osiris

Set, a.k.a. Seth, was as close to a god of evil as the ancient Egyptians got. So Osiris is ruling Egypt wisely and he's happily married to his own sister Isis, like gods are wont to do. His brother Set is jealous of Osiris, and begins this elaborate ruse where he makes a big, ornate chest/coffin that he brings to a big dinner party and says he'll give it to whoever fits perfectly inside it. Well, no one thinks this is weird, so everybody gets in, but no one realizes it was built to fit Osiris exactly. And when the king gets in, Set nails it closed, covered it with molten lead, and tossed it into the Nile. Osiris died, like anyone would when thrown into an airtight coffin covered in molten lead. Eventually, Isis managed to find the chest and bring it back to Egypt, but Set discovered it, opened it up, tore his brother's corpse into 14 separate pieces and hid them along the entirety of the Nile. Set did not care for Osiris.

3) The Set-Horus War of Dickery, Part I

After Isis gathered up most of her husband's corpse, reassembled it so he could be properly buried and sent into the afterlife (where he became king there), Orisis' son Horus declared war on his evil uncle. Stand procedure, right? Well, no. Because rather than fight a regular battle, the two of them were determined to just fuck with each other. For example, at one point Horus and Ra were hanging out, when Seth came by disguised as a giant pig. Ra was like, "Damn! That's a big pig!" And Horus was like, "I gotta check that pig out!" So Horus approached this giant pig that had come out of nowhere and that's when Set lit Horus' goddamn eyeball on fire, and ran off cackling. Later, after Horus had recovered, Set tore out both of Horus' eyes and planted them in the ground, where they turned into lotus trees. That must have been super-irritating for Horus.

4) The Set-Horus War of Dickery, Part II

Horus wasn't innocent in this war, though. During the decades of battle, at one point Horus challenged Set to a boat race down the Nile, where the two of them had to use boats made of stone. Set was game, but he didn't realize Horus had a boat made of wood painted to look like stone. Set sank, and Horus won. Sure, it's not quite on the level of constantly destroying someone's eyes, but it's almost worse for how petty it is.

5) The Set-Horus War of Dickery, Part III

But if you're still feeling bad for Horus, maybe this will help: During one of the battles, Horus' mother Isis tried to help out. She almost immediately managed to harpoon her son. The aggravated Horus managed to disentangle himself, at which point Isis then harpooned Set, like some kind of ancient Egyptian Mr. Bean. Although this was actually in her son's benefit, Set managed to talk her into letting him escape. When Horus found out, he beheaded his mom, and then tried to hide the head. It didn't work.

6) Apep Is the Worst

Apep might be the biggest dick of all divinity. First of all, he spends every single day trying to kill the sun — i.e., Ra — as he travels across the sky each day. That's it. He's a serpent/dragon who spends his every waking moment trying to kill the head of the Egyptian pantheon and plunge the world into darkness. Now, you may not think that seems like a big deal, but the Egyptians were so concerned they wrote The Books of Overthrowing Apep to make sure this didn't happen. The chapter titles are even more amazing:

• Spitting Upon Apep

• Defiling Apep with the Left Foot

• Taking a Lance to Smite Apep

• Fettering Apep

• Taking a Knife to Smite Apep

• Putting Fire Upon Apep

Basically, fuck Apep.

7) Meshkent: Worst Goddess of Childbirth Ever

I'm not sure if the people of ancient Egypt realized what a dick move this was, but their goddess of childbirth was also the goddess of bricks. So when Egyptian women gave birth, they actually squatted over bricks — bricks with Meshkent's face on them. If this isn't a dick move to the mothers, then it's a dick move to the babies, who's first action in life is to land headfirst on a goddamn brick.

8) The Set-Horus War of Dickery, Part IV

Frankly, there's no bigger dickmanship in the whole of Egyptian mythology than this story. So at some point during Set and Horus' battle, Set thought he'd gain the upper-hand by… well, fucking Horus, and thus dominating him (homosexuality wasn't the defining issue, here, it was about who got fucked and who did the fucking). Now, this sex apparently happened, but that clever Horus stuck his hand between his thighs, and secretly caught Set's semen, and later tossed it in the river. Now, that would be crazy by itself, but Horus took it a step further by secretly jacking off over Set's lunch. So when Set later demanded an audience of the gods to say, "Hey, I should be in charge because I fucked Horus!" Horus claimed it was vice versa. And when the gods checked where everybody's semen was, Set's semen was miles away, while Horus's semen was chilling inside Horus. Horus won the judgment, but shockingly, Set was a little too upset to accept the god's ruling.